What is an employee journey?

Onboarding describes the tasks associated with bringing on a new employee, and getting them up to speed with systems, tools, processes, and expectations. New employees typically require a “ramp up” time to get up to speed and find productive strategies. Effective onboarding takes the initial enthusiasm of a new job and turns it into something meaningful and long-term.

Consider the steps in the employee journey that affect employee engagement. These efforts should be continuous and persistent along every stage of the employee journey. A crucial aspect of this process is communication—carefully create a workplace communication strategy and assess when/how to communicate with employees. An organization’s ability to successfully engage with their employees makes for a better employee experience.

This is an ongoing process as you develop individuals at varying rates and across different skills. To map this stage, you must be able to quantify their productivity, ability to be a team player, and their career aspirations. It’s also important to offer employees opportunities to expand their skill sets—an important differentiator for employees who want to build a portfolio consisting of varied experiences.

Employees that are ramped up and developing need incentive to continue improving and contributing to the success of a company. Increase performance by inspiring them and connecting them to the success of a company’s vision.

There are many different reasons why an employee may part ways with your business. But while you’ll never be able to stop employees from moving on, you can develop a clearer understanding of why they are leaving, and how you can help prevent future employees from doing the same. Employees will leave at different stages, and exits are an essential opportunity to find out what can be improved and developed for future employees.

Journey mapping assists with the thought processes surrounding hidden aspects of the employee journey.

Mapping allows you to leverage what is working well in all moments of the journey, to meet employee needs no matter what stage they are in.

Mapping a journey reveals not only where, but also why you might not be meeting the expectations of your employees. Use this information to identify and eliminate bad experiences wherever possible.

There usually isn’t a single critical point along the employee journey that fosters inequity. Instead, it’s the combined impact of systemic inequity and bias over many moments that can create a significant experience gap. Find key points where you can foster equity and inclusion, and help employees understand how important they are to the organization.

An employee experience that is personalized accounts for unique situations, needs, and the employee preferences, and applies those accounts to deliver an experience customized to the needs of the individual.

Design, plan, and execute on personal work experiences, much in the same way that organizations handle customer experiences. While mass-communication and other ‘wide-net’ strategies may seem more cost effective, they tend to create an impersonal atmosphere, where no employee feels very important or understood. Instead, personalize your communications and processes within the employee journey, so that they have the specific support and direction they need to exel.

Personalized experiences provide the additional support and comfort they need to address mentally exhausting tasks. At the same time, a properly personalized employee journey benefits the organization as a whole, by offering insight into how individual employee satisfaction affects the company’s overall ability to generate revenue.

While personalization of the employee experience is more time-consuming and labor intensive than simply creating a one-size-fits-all approach, it is also far more effective. And, with the right personalization strategies, you can create custom employee experiences without over taxing your resources.

Here are three key focuses to consider while you personalize the employee journey:

• Onboarding
  Chances are, you’ll be hiring for different roles within your company. As such, having a single, universal onboarding experience simply is not effective. The onboarding experience should be tailored to the specific jobs that your new hire will be expected to perform. At the same time, not every hire responds the same way to the same training and processes; where possible, try to customize the onboarding process to fit the unique needs of each new employee.
• Equipment
  Employees are generally a better judge of which hardware will help them be the most productive. If you force every individual in your workforce to conform to exactly the same equipment, you may be hurting the employee experience. Instead of assigning standardized hardware, consider giving each employee an equipment budget with which they can requisition specific hardware to meet their specific needs and responsibilities.
• Location
  2020 forced a shift in attitude towards the concept of the remote worker. Today, employees are less understanding of company policies that force them to remain in office without justification. Where online capabilities allow for remote work without a drop in capability, give your employees the freedom to choose where they work. And for those who do have to be in the office, open-style workspaces allow employees to find the spot that best nurtures their own productivity.
• Hours
  Again, unless absolutely necessary to foster coordination between teams and departments, or to better serve customers, there really isn’t any reason why every employee should have to work the same 9 – 5 work day. Wherever possible, allow your employees to set their own work hours, and then assess their effectiveness based on quality of work, not hours spent sitting at a desk.
  

Consider how your employee’s journey is different based on departments, like software developers and recruiters. Segment your workforce based on these different personas. Thinking about the journey of different employees will help you prepare for creating multiple journey maps.

You don’t have to create a great deal of journey maps, but you need to be inclusive by including sub-maps or smaller variations within a map. You shouldn’t only account for the type of job and its related tasks; also take into account the age of the hire and other personal information you may have access to—development opportunities are valued differently based on an employee’s generation and prior experiences.

Conduct regular surveys and collect information to better understand what employees think of your efforts, and where you may need to improve.

Surveys provide cumulative data, but qualitative feedback is also crucial for improving journey maps. For example, after participating in a training session, reach out to see what your employees thought of it, if they found the information useful, and if they feel as though they need to move forward. If the feedback is negative, or if employees provide valid suggestions for improvement, update and revise the training to for an improved experience.

Keep track of KPIs and the success of your employee journey mapping. Set your own parameters for success of onboarding, recognition, and development. Measuring recognition efforts can also be automated and integrated with recognition software.